Having recently reviewed the work of Amitav Ghosh for Democratiya, I find myself haunted once again by this passage:
The thickening crust of our awareness is both a sign and a reminder of our unwitting complicity in the evolution of violence: if that which mesmerized us yesterday ceases to interest us today, then it follows that the act which will next claim our attention will be even more horrific, even more resistant to yesterday’s imagination, than the last. The horror of these acts is thus exactly calibrated to the indifference upon which they are inflicted.
Indeed, people have been reminding amnesiac news anchors that India has suffered a string of terrorist atrocities in recent years — and several just in recent months. Yesterday’s attack in Mumbai was only the most brazen and outlandish, “exactly calibrated to the indifference upon which [it was] inflicted.”
Ghosh, moreover, brings a lifetime of insight into the sectarian religious violence that has plagued India for decades: Hindu on Muslim, Muslim on Hindu, Hindu on Sikh, on and on. In the wake of last night’s attack, an orgy of inter-communal bloodletting is a frighteningly real prospect. Chris Devonshire-Ellis (via) writes:
…if last night’s atrocities in Mumbai turn out to be Islamic backed, violence and retribution could ignite across India. The nation possesses a larger Muslim population than Pakistan, and much of the area around the Crawford Bazaar in the heart of Mumbai remains steadfastly Muslim – Mosques and Minarets abound, as do bushy beards, skull caps and women wearing burkhas. Anti-Muslim feelings here if uncontrolled in the wake of these terrorist attacks would be devastating. Tens of thousands could die.
India, and Mumbai, must be on their guard against such feelings and act quickly to defuse tensions that are bound to be running high.
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